Is
the Lord's Church supposed to burn and destroy physical things or people?

Here
is a story which was news on September 8, 2010:

GAINESVILLE,
Fla. (AP) - The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy
said Wednesday he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of
the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders
and others to call it off. "We are still determined to it, yes," the Rev. Terry
Jones told the CBS Early Show.

Jones
says he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-caliber
pistol strapped to his hip since announcing his plan to burn the book Muslims
consider the word of God and insist be treated with the utmost respect.

The
58-year-old minister proclaimed in July that he would stage "International Burn-a-Quran
Day." Supporters have been mailing copies of the holy text to his Gainesville
church of about 50 followers to be incinerated in a bonfire on Saturday to mark
the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Rev.
Terry Jones was inteviewed and asked why he wanted to burn the Koran. He said
there were two reasons-- First, to remember the people murdered in the 9/11 massacre,
and Second, to send a message to Islam that it is not welcomed in America. He
also wants to tell peaceful Muslims to stay peaceful.

LISTEN
TO THE INTERVIEW - Please notice how the preacher's apologetic was turned
on him to help him make a perfect fool of himself. Rev. Jones was helped to paint
himself into a corner by what sounds like a sodomite. He would have never been
interviewed by this talk show fellow if he had stayed with preaching the Gospel.

All
sorts of highly placed characters spoke to the issue of burning the Koran in Florida,
including US General David Petraeus, the US Justice Department, and Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton. They were all horrified of course, and the all sounded
pretty much alike. Their logic was, in simple words, "This is not fair. This
is not nice." As I write this, nothing official has been done to stop the
preacher, and I suspect nothing will be done. In the USA he has the right to burn
any book he wants as long as he did not steal the book.

If
anything is done about this, I suspect there will be an attempt to make this a
hate crime, which would be the United Nations' claim under the Genocide Treaty,
which Ronald Reagan signed of behalf of the USA, and the Hate Crimes Act of the
USA signed by George H. Bush.

LINK:Rev. Terry Jones
has a ministerial school in his church, and the rules in the rule book, including
his insane grammar and syntax, indicate to me that he is basically a total nut
case. If you know a Muslim who is offended by the Bible burning, please let them
read the rule book, and explain to them that there are people in all religions
whose mind is sick. It is not right to judge any group of people by the sick minds
in their midst.

How
should Bible believers see this event?

FIRST--
Jesus Christ is our example

Jesus
never burned the Mishna, the code book which the Pharisees had added to the Law
of Moses. He hated their additions, which he called the "traditions of men."
He rebuked them to their face often about adding to the Law, but he never burned
the Mishna.

Nor
did Jesus burn any of the idols and worship icons of the Roman and Hellenistic
pagan population of Jerusalem. There must have been tons of idols and pagan icons
in Jerusalem, which did not please God, and which Jesus could have burned. As
the Son of God, Jesus would have been entirely justified in burning all the pagan
rubbish he could find. It was a direct violation of the Law of Moses.

So,
what did Jesus do to stop evil?

He
preached that the Kingdom of God was available to men in his person. That was
his reason to be on earth as a man:

Matthew
4:17 (KJV) From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand.

Luke
9:1 (KJV) Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and
authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. 2 And he sent them to preach
the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.

Jesus
came to seek and save lost men:

Luke
19:9 (KJV) And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house,
forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of man is come to
seek and to save that which was lost.

SECOND--
Jesus told us what we should be doing after his death and resurrection.

Jesus,
just before returning to the right hand of the Father in heaven, gave what has
been referred to as the Great Commission. There is no way to miss the point, though
the preacher in Florida seems to have missed it entirely:

Mark
16:15 (KJV) And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel
to every creature. 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but
he that believeth not shall be damned. 17 And these signs shall follow them
that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new
tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing,
it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

You
will notice please that Jesus intended them to do battle with devils that possessed
people. That can get violent. I have experienced this myself as a pastor. It IS
warfare of the highest order, and you can get hurt for taking Satan's turf away
from him. His servants react violently. But, there is nothing in this commission
about burning books or the trinkets of man.

The
Apostle Paul later enlarged on Jesus' commission of his disciples in a letter
to a young preacher, Timothy:

2
Timothy 4:1 (KJV) I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort
with all longsuffering and doctrine.

There
was nothing a pastor like Timothy was to be doing to trash paganism around him
other than to preach the Word of God to the pagans.

THIRD--
A burning in the New Testament Church age:

There
was indeed a burning during the missionary days of the Apostle Paul. This account
will finally define to you why the Florida preacher is not a servant of Jesus
Christ.

This
happened at Ephesus in what is today Turkey:

Acts
19:13 (KJV) Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call
over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure
you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. 14 And there were seven sons of one Sceva,
a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. 15 And the evil spirit answered
and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in
whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against
them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was
known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them
all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed
came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. 19 Many of them also which used
curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and
they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
20 So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

I
included the experiences of the sons of Sceva to show that real spiritual warfare
was going on here. Paul was at the center of it. His message was being heard,
and many believed. These sons of Sceva wanted the power of God without being converted
TO Jesus Christ first.

My
Dad was involved in at least one burning in Tanzania when my parents were missionaries
there in the 1950s. A Kamba lady had been converted and publicly confessed her
faith in Jesus Christ. She wanted to be baptized, but before she could be baptized
she was required by the local church to burn all her heathen fetishes. These fetishes
were very powerful to the Wakamba tribe, so it was a monumental event. This lady
was challenging the power of Satan in burning her fetishes.

The
church elders and my Dad gathered in the lady's village, sang the hymn Power
in The Blood, and the lady went from place to place in the village compound
and dug up idols from the ground and from the grass roof. The last fetish was
a sea shell piece which had hung around her neck since the day she was born. It
was the abode of the spirit of her ancestor. She took it off and handed it to
a church elder, and he placed it on a rock, and with another rock he smashed it.
The lady shuddered all over as he did it, but afterward her face lit up, and my
Dad said she was visibly changed and looked entirely happy. The power of Satan
had been broken.

For
the record, when the Blood of Jesus is preached and sung, all idols and false
scriptures fall down and become rubbish. The changed life of a Muslim, who denounces
Huhammed and comes to Jesus Christ, is far more powerful than the flames of a
preacher in Florida.

What
about burning the Koran?

Answer:
If a Muslim wants to burn his Koran after becoming a believer in Jesus Christ,
I would be delighted to be with him and rejoice in his liberty, if that is what
he needs. Some modern Christians would certainly benefit by having a burning at
their home. The Lord's Church today does not speak enough about breaking the power
of physical symbolism and the toys of sin from the old life before a person is
born again.

I
can tell you from personal experience that I have had a few burnings. I burned
a pile of Southern Gospel records long ago, some of them were very old and valuable
as collectors. But, I needed to see them go up in smoke as a landmark to my separation
from what I had come to believe was profane mixture in music form. I burned books
on several occasions. They were books I did not believe were sound teaching, and
I did not even want to put them in the trash in case the trash collectors saw
them and gleaned them out of my trash.

The
point-- Burnings, and destroying of physical symbols of paganism and evil, should
be done by the person who is saved out of the old life of sin. What the preacher
in Florida is doing by burning the Koran, as a special grandstand event, is exactly
the same thing the Popes of Rome did long ago. They sent Crusaders to Jerusalem
to kill Muslims and "save" Jerusalem. The blood baths were NOT about
preaching the Gospel to unsaved sinners. They were about physical violence and
hubris-- nothing more.

The
preacher in Florida wants a rush-- the adrenal rush that comes from slapping a
grizzly bear in the nose. This has nothing to do with preaching Christ to the
lost. If the preacher is assassinated, he will get NO reward in heaven. Why? Answer:
He was not doing what Jesus and Paul did, and he was not preaching Christ to Muslims.
He was slapping them.

If
you are an offense for preaching Christ, that is both predictable and rewarded
by God. Random offenses, based on mongrel zeal, are NOT a blessing to God, and
they will result in you making a fool of yourself:

1
Corinthians 10:31 (KJV) Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do,
do all to the glory of God. 32 Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor
to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: 33 Even as I please all men in
all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may
be saved.

The
preacher in Florida might claim he wants to win souls and see Muslims saved. Any
Fundamentalist Pentecostal will say that to make people think he wants to preach
Christ. The insane side of this is that, for the rest of his life, and for the
rest of that local church's history, they will NOT win Muslims to Christ. No Muslim
will listen. The Fundamentalist Sharia Muslims will hate them, and Muslims in
the USA who are fed up with violent Islam will see this burning as just the same
thing they want to get away from in Islam. These people have made themselves a
pariah rather than a source of light.

It
is also interesting that this preacher is hiding behind the skirts of Liberty.
He did not take his copy of the Koran, fly to Istanbul or Pakistan, and burn the
Koran in the town square THERE. He is a wimp. If he really believed he needed
to make a point, he would do as close to the center of Islam (Mecca) as he could
and burn it there. He has to burn it in the USA because this is about the only
nation on earth where he has the freedom to burn Korans.

Finally,
his actions will cause millions of pagan Americans to take up the cause of Islam.
The thing he fears the most, the Islamization of America, will be greatly assisted
as Americans feel sorry for the Muslims. The man is just plain stupid.

In
fact, my suspicious side wonders if he is a CIA agent assigned to make an issue
that will bring chaos to the nation. There are those in high places who really
believe in "Ordo ab Chao," -- Order comes from Chaos.

PERSONAL
OBSERVATION

I
say the preacher is a fool.

I
have several copies of the Koran, and I have a whole shelf of false religious
writings. I have them so that, if I meet someone from one of the religions of
the world, I can make an appointment to have coffee later. I will then come home
and bone up on their beliefs so I know what strategy to use in giving them the
Gospel.

The
Gospel never changes and is to be given just as God gave it to us, BUT every different
religious person will have their own presuppositions and beliefs. From these beliefs
will come questions as they see the conflict between the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and their religion. Many idiots these day believe you don't need to try to understand
what unsaved people are thinking. You don't need to have their books available
for making your witnessing war strategy.

Well,
Paul sure was up to date on the Greek religion when he went up Mars Hill in Athens:

Acts
17:22 (KJV) Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens,
I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 23 For as I passed
by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE
UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25 Neither is worshipped
with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life,
and breath, and all things; 26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men
for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the
Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from
every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain
also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. 29 Forasmuch
then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is
like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. 30 And
the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where
to repent:

Not
only did Paul use their "devotions," that is, their idol worship, as
a jumping off point in his witness to them, he also made reference to one of their
poets in verse 28. So, if you have a Koran, keep it so that you can read it if
you ever get to witness to a Muslim. It is helpful to show the contradictions
between the Koran and the Bible, and there are classic places where Mohammed got
biblical history all botched up. This also is useful to show that the alleged
later revelation (the Koran) does not support the original revelation (the Bible).

Here
is a graphic example of why to keep even pagan books. You will learn here
that the first burning of the Koran was a long long time ago. By the way, the
men in the video are quoting from the Hadith as well as the Koran. The Hadith
are the saying of Mohammed-- between 4000 and 7000 depending on which version
of the Hadith you have. The Hadith is almost totally unknown to Christians, yet
it is the most powerful tool in showing how Islam contradicts itself. It is also
many times more authoritative as the source for Sharia law.

If
you were once a Muslim, and you have now confessed your faith in Jesus Christ,
and if the Koran is an offense to you, and if you want a landmark experience to
imprint on you mind forever your departure from the lies of Mecca and Mohammed,
then DO burn your Koran.

May
God bless you for doing so.

__________________

It
is very important to understand that what the Muslim Mullahs and Imams think of
the Koran, and the very holy reverence of that book in Islam, has NO bearing on
what a Bible believer does with it. We are under NO obligation to show ANY reverence
for ANY pagan trinket, book, of idol.

On
the other hand, burning a Koran, or any other icon of any other religion, is NOT
the first step to win Muslims to Jesus Christ. The first step is person to person
witnessing, and I would suspect that the preacher in Florida does not give a damn
about saving souls from Islam. I have met many like him, and they basically want
those "sand niggers" and "towel heads" to go to hell. I would
be VERY surprised if he has ever in his life given the Gospel to a Muslim.

Jude
1:21 (KJV) Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord
Jesus Christ unto eternal life. 22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:
23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the
garment spotted by the flesh.